A resource reservation network, as used herein, is a network that supports reservation of bandwidth for a session. Optionally, the resource reservation network also supports reservation of end-to-end latency for the session, end-to-end latency variation for the session, and/or max burst size.
Establishing a new session over a network takes a period of time that is usually a function of the complexity of the network. In a resource reservation network there is also a need to verify that the network can support the resources guaranteed in a reservation in essentially any load condition, which may increase the session admission time.
In the case of multiple high-bandwidth sessions, the prior art resource reservation networks may not support establishment of multiple high-bandwidth sessions in parallel because the prior art resource reservation network may not have enough network resources (such as bandwidth, and/or ability to guarantee maximum latency and/or maximum latency variation) to support an existence of multiple high-bandwidth sessions in parallel.
In some cases, there is a need to switch between sessions fast, however, it is impossible with the prior art resource reservation networks to switch from a current session to a new session over a time that is shorter than the time required to create the new session.